


The Right Choice

by ba_lailah



Category: Original Work
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Blood, F/F, First Kiss, Getting Together, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, Loyalty, Major Character Injury, Marriage Proposal, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25504813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ba_lailah/pseuds/ba_lailah
Summary: "Your partner should have the qualities you lack," Sezera said. "Where is the kingdom most in need?"Queen Rhenn frowned. "Most of all," she said slowly, "I think I need a war leader. No, a defense leader. Lorgannid has generously chosen not to hold my father's errors against me, but with so many of our good people fallen, other kingdoms may see us as vulnerable. I need someone who will be clever but considered, who won't be aggressive but will make the most of the resources we do have to keep us safe while we recover."Her aunt nodded approvingly. "Well done," she said. "I agree. I will challenge the princesses to single combat."
Relationships: Suspicious Battle-Hardened Noblewoman & Her Niece the New Queen & Queen's Suitors
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20
Collections: Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Yellow Team





	The Right Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ashling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/gifts).



Queen Rhenn of Brannid flopped over the foot of her aunt's bed, deliberately mimicking the dramatics of a girl much younger than her twenty-five years. "I can't _decide_ ," she wailed.

Sir Sezera—rightfully Princess Sezera, but she had refused the title from the moment her mother knighted her—wiped and sheathed her favorite knife and put the whetstone back in her desk drawer. "Flip a coin," she said.

"And rest the fate of the kingdom on luck?"

"The fate of the kingdom already rests on luck," Sezera said pragmatically. "For example, we are most fortunate that this autumn's harvest has been enough to make up for your father, may his bleeding soul wander forever, conscripting every able-bodied person in the kingdom for his ill-considered foray into Lorgannid. Without that, you'd be begging a princess to marry you rather than enjoying the pleasure of choosing between two of them."

Rhenn groaned. "Must you turn everything into a lesson?" She knew better than to chide Sezera for cursing King Connin's soul. Sezera would never forgive her brother for what he did to their kingdom—or for being king purely by accident of birth, though she was far better suited to the throne. But Rhenn would never stop missing her father, even as she acknowledged all of his mistakes, and she felt a pang at the thought of him wandering through the afterlife bleeding from the wounds of the Lorgannish swords that had ended his reign and begun hers.

"It's my duty to advise you," Sezera said. "Your father certainly did nothing to prepare you for the responsibilities of rule."

Rhenn sat up, sighing. "Advise me, then. Diya or Fernanti?"

"Your partner should have the qualities you lack," Sezera said. "Where is the kingdom most in need?"

The queen frowned. "Most of all," she said slowly, "I think I need a war leader. No, a defense leader. Lorgannid has generously chosen not to hold my father's errors against me, but with so many of our good people fallen, other kingdoms may see us as vulnerable. I need someone who will be clever but considered, who won't be aggressive but will make the most of the resources we do have to keep us safe while we recover."

Her aunt nodded approvingly. "Well done," she said. "I agree. I will challenge the princesses to single combat."

"You'll _what_? Aunt Zeze—"

"Neither one can possibly prevail against me, of course," Sezera said. "But we'll fight by standard exhibition rules: ten minutes or first blood. Until you see them fight, how can you know who will be as brave in battle as she is in her boasts?"

They argued for much of the evening, but Sezera had her way in the end. The next day, she issued the challenge, and the terms of the trials were set.

⚔️

Rhenn forced herself not to fidget anxiously as Sezera met Princess Fernanti of Iyendo in front of the dais where Rhenn was seated. Fernanti had chosen to fight with a longsword—bold, as Sezera's skill with the weapon was well known—and she winked at Rhenn as she made her salute to the queen. Rhenn permitted herself only a small smile. She'd greatly enjoyed flirting with the tall, strong princess over their recent state dinners, but she didn't want to be seen as playing favorites.

Fernanti and Sezera faced off. When Rhenn called "Begin!" they engaged immediately, their swords clashing loudly. It was a good match. Fernanti was taller than Sezera, nearly as strong, younger and less experienced but wilier. Sezera attacked bluntly; Fernanti blocked and dodged nimbly. Rhenn was puzzled, as her aunt's style was usually more considered... but then she realized she'd specified she needed a defense leader, and Sezera was giving Fernanti a chance to prove herself a capable defender against a fierce opponent.

Within a couple of minutes, Rhenn had gone from eagerly leaning forward to thoughtfully sitting back. Fernanti did defend herself well, but she relied too much on a strategy of giving ground to lure her opponent into overextending. That might work well enough for a powerful knight in single combat who could make up that ground easily when needed—indeed, it had kept her safe while bringing her within a hairsbreadth of drawing blood on Sezera—but it was less useful for a tiny, vulnerable kingdom surrounded by stronger neighbors and hamstrung by the legacy of its incompetent previous ruler. Rhenn had always had a liking for women who towered over her, but as she studied Fernanti, she wondered for the first time whether it might be important for the future consort and battle leader of Brannid to know what it was like to be small.

The timekeeper tapped a chime, signaling that ten minutes had passed. "Halt!" Rhenn shouted over the ringing of swords. Sezera and Fernanti stepped back from each other, breathing heavily, and bowed to each other and then to her. Neither one had been so much as scratched. Perhaps Fernanti was the best choice, then—if all of Brannid's battles could conclude without bloodshed, Rhenn would be a happy queen indeed.

She hid a sigh. She'd hoped this exhibition would make her decision easier, but so far it had only given her more unanswerable questions.

As Sezera took a moment to refresh herself and shed the armor worn for longsword fights, Princess Diya of distant Korda Brin strode confidently into the courtyard, armed with the twin daggers she'd chosen for her trial. Not waiting for Sezera, she planted her feet in front of the dais and bowed over her crossed daggers. Rhenn expected another wink; Diya had been very forward with her, even lustily alluding to their future wedding night and hinting that she wouldn't mind anticipating it. But when Diya's eyes met Rhenn's, they were so full of hatred that Rhenn half rose from her seat, alarmed.

"For Lorgannid!" Diya cried, and she flung her daggers at the queen.

One went wide, but the other buried itself in Rhenn's left shoulder. She staggered back, her chair overturning, and clutched at it, feeling lightheaded as blood poured through her fingers and pain spiked through her. People were screaming and shouting. "Look to the queen!" she heard Sezera bellowing above them all. 

The sound became garbled in her ears as her vision went dark, and for a moment she thought the noise around her was a party like the ones King Connin had so loved, the ones she had put a stop to as soon as she ascended the throne and learned the state of the royal treasury. The cacophony of voices, the footsteps milling about... she could almost see her father...

Then all awareness left her.

⚔️

She struggled to wake up, slowly rising to consciousness through the hubbub in her ears. When she opened her eyes, for a moment she thought her father was standing by her, and she gasped. Then the feeling of his presence fled. Had she caught a whiff of his scent, heard a voice like his? Had his spirit come to take hers to the afterlife?

But she was still alive, as she knew most of all from the agony in her shoulder, and after a moment she realized she was still on the dais, lying flat on the threadbare but beautiful tapestry that carpeted it. Why hadn't someone moved her? Hadn't she been unconscious for hours? It had felt like hours... 

She tried to lift her head and groaned. 

"Lie still, my lady," a low voice said.

She slowly shifted her head until she could see Fernanti kneeling beside her. The warrior's strong hands pressed a folded, blood-soaked cloth to Rhenn's shoulder. "You must lie still," she said again. "If you move, it will bleed more."

"Sezera," she croaked.

"She is pursuing the assassin." Fernanti scowled. "You need better guards, my lady."

"I do." Rhenn closed her eyes. The pain was nauseating, and she took short breaths, trying to calm her stomach. "I need. Better everything." She had no spymaster to verify that Princess Diya was who she said she was, no guards who could protect her from a determined killer, no healer worth the name—she was sure someone had gone to fetch Mistress Pearry, but what could a midwife do for a stab wound? The royal surgeon had ridden out to Lorgannid at the king's command, and, like so many, had never come home. Hiring another was on her list... but it was a long list.

She did her best to rest, drifting in and out of consciousness. She was dimly aware of people trying to speak to her and Fernanti making them go away. Her knees and shins ached—she must have fallen to her knees before she passed out.

The next time she awoke, Pearry was kneeling at her side, conferring with Fernanti. Rhenn couldn't make out much of what they were saying through the roaring in her ears, but the midwife's tone suggested she approved of whatever Fernanti had done to care for her. That was good.

"My lady," Pearry said, leaning over her.

"Speak up," Rhenn whispered. "Ears. Loud."

Pearry raised her voice. "We must get you to your room so your wound can be cleaned and stitched." Rhenn's stomach twisted and she gulped air. "Don't try to move. Sir Grayen is bringing strong knights to carry you."

Booted feet clomped onto the dais, and something was put down next to her. After a moment she figured out it was a wooden door, taken off its hinges and draped in soft fabric. She admired the quick thinking of whoever had come up with that.

For the first time Rhenn realized her gown and chemise were half off; they had been torn down the middle so they could be pulled down her arm and away from her wounded shoulder. Someone had thoughtfully covered her with a cloak, probably as much to warm her in the cool autumn air as to guard her modesty.

Fernanti carefully lifted the bloody cloth from her shoulder so Pearry could examine it. Rhenn looked away, shuddering. The pain was a constant, the nausea almost worse. Seeing the wound wouldn't help.

"The bleeding has slowed," Pearry said loudly. "A very good sign. Sir Grayen, if you please—carefully—"

But Fernanti's strong arm was the one that slid behind her shoulders while someone else raised her legs, and Fernanti's gentle hand was the one that held the cloak in place to cover her breast, as though she cared. Let the whole court see her naked. All that mattered to her was surviving.

Rhenn cried out in pain as they moved her onto the door. "Quickly, quickly," Pearry snapped. The platform was lifted as steadily as could be managed, and Grayen's familiar, squeaky voice—so incongruous for a big, bluff knight—began counting a marching cadence to keep the bearers moving in unison. Nonetheless, the rocking unsettled her stomach further. She managed to lift her good hand and clap it over her mouth.

"You are strong," Fernanti said. Rhenn realized she was walking alongside the bearers as though she had a right to be there. And didn't she? There was no longer any mystery as to who the queen's consort would be.

"Talk to me," Rhenn whispered against her palm.

Somehow, Fernanti heard her. Without hesitation, she said, "This is the story of the girl who sought the rain, which my mother told to me and her mother told to her. Long ago and far away, a girl wondered where the rain came from, and she set out across the land to find its home..."

Rhenn lay back, soothed by the fairy tale. She'd grown up with one much like it, though Fernanti's version had the girl swimming down to the palace of the ocean instead of flying to the palace of the sun. Somehow the story, or Fernanti's voice, made the pain a little less horrible, and even the jolting and jostling of the platform being carried up the stairs wasn't as bad as she had expected.

She screamed when they moved her into her bed, and something about being in the familiar place—a place of safety and comfort—brought her to tears that turned into shuddering sobs. Then Pearry was there with a tincture of something that smelled botanical and bitter. Two drops of it under her tongue sent her quickly into a deep and dreamless sleep. 

⚔️

She woke to the comforting, steady sound of Sezera sharpening one of her knives.

"Zeze," she whispered.

"Rhenn!" Sezera, sitting by the bed, hastily sheathed the knife and leaned forward to take Rhenn's hand. "How do you feel?"

Rhenn took stock. "Awful," she said. "But I'm alive."

"We caught Diya," Sezera said. "She's alive too. Lorgannid's ambassador swears she acted without their knowledge or approval. It seems her lover was killed in the war and she decided on this scheme for revenge. She's neither a princess nor from Korda Brin—it was all a lie. And my notion of single combat gave her the perfect opportunity to attack you." She leaned forward. "My lady," she said in formal tones she almost never used with her niece, "this should never have happened."

"It should not have," Rhenn said. "But you're. Not to blame." She took a deep breath, wincing as her shoulder twinged. The tincture was doing an admirable job of moving most of the pain about three feet to her left, where she could handle it better. "Blame the hand that held the knife. Or my father."

For once Sezera let pass an opportunity to find fault with King Connin. "I should have vetted her," she said, pounding her fist on her leg. "I should—"

"Quiet," Rhenn said with all her little strength. Even grievously wounded, she was still queen.

Sezera sat back, shocked.

"I will not. Cannot. Soothe your guilt." Rhenn shook her head slowly. That sounded harsher than she meant, but she had no capacity for diplomacy. She gripped Sezera's hand, hoping her love and forgiveness would come through in her touch. "Recovery first. Then, we talk."

"My lady," Sezera said, bowing her head in respect.

Someone knocked and then opened the door without waiting for a response. "Oh," Pearry gasped, coming in with a tray of bandages, "you're awake! Sir Sezera, you should have fetched me at once. My lady, how is the pain? Do you think you can have a bit of broth, perhaps?"

A bit of broth turned out to make everything a great deal better—everything except the pain, which was slowly coming back. Rhenn did her best to tolerate it. She hated the way the tincture clouded her mind. When Pearry changed the bandage, Rhenn made herself look at the neatly stitched wound; with all the blood cleaned away, it was more strange than upsetting. Pearry was pleased that she could move her fingers and very carefully bend her arm at the elbow and wrist, but strictly ordered her not to move her upper arm or shoulder at least until the suture had been taken out.

Sezera stayed by her side, looking more and more exhausted, until Rhenn ordered her to get some rest. Her maid came in to do what could be done with her hair and brought her a slightly unfashionable capelet that easily slipped around her shoulders and fully covered her front, disguising her lack of chemise. At last—and was it really only the evening of the same day that had begun with swords clashing in the courtyard?—Rhenn felt as ready as she would ever be, and she asked for Princess Fernanti.

Fernanti arrived so quickly that Rhenn suspected she'd been waiting outside the room. She looked haggard, but brightened to see Rhenn awake and propped up on pillows. "My lady," she said warmly. "Are you well?"

"Well enough," Rhenn said. "I think I owe you my life."

Fernanti neither waved it off nor gloated; instead, she knelt by the bed and took Rhenn's good hand. "It was my honor to serve you," she said.

"It would be my own honor to accept your petition of marriage," Rhenn said. "If it still stands."

"Of course it does," Fernanti said immediately. "Why wouldn't it?"

Rhenn carefully shrugged her right shoulder. "You have seen me brought low, weakened."

"You're hardly weak! You fought death, and won," Fernanti said—the most blunt anyone had been about how near she had come to dying, and Rhenn appreciated the bluntness as much as the compliment. "There is no greater strength."

"Then disgust at how poorly guarded Brannid's queen is."

"I will guard you myself," Fernanti said. She sounded a bit like Sezera. Rhenn couldn't help smiling. All these years of butting heads with her aunt, and here she was, wedding a consort cast from the same mold.

But not entirely the same. Where Sezera rode to the attack, Fernanti stayed and defended. Rhenn no longer worried about whether Brannid would be in good hands. She had felt those hands on her shoulder, holding her life in.

"In Brannid," she said, "a proposal accepted is sealed with a kiss."

"In Iyendo too," Fernanti said. She hesitated. "Are you well enough?"

Rhenn gave her a ghost of the flirtatious smiles they'd long ago (no, only last night!) traded across the banquet table. "Come find out."

Fernanti half-rose and delicately, respectfully pressed her lips against Rhenn's. Some self-conscious part of Rhenn fretted about the tincture's taste still in her mouth, the awkwardness of their positions, but those thoughts were quickly overwhelmed by the softness of Fernanti's lips and the tenderness of her touch. Her gentleness seemed so at odds with her powerful body, and yet so of a piece with the way she used her strength to protect and heal.

Rhenn lifted her shaky right hand to touch Fernanti's damp hair (how she envied her having the chance to bathe) and stroke down her cheek. Fernanti murmured against her mouth, and Rhenn's lips parted for her. Even through the lingering fog of the medicine, their touch sparked something deep inside her that she longed to explore.

At last Fernanti drew away and straightened up, nearly knocking her head on the bed's canopy. Her eyes were dark and hungry. She and Rhenn took deep breaths at the same moment, suppressing the desire they could do nothing about for now, and then shared wry smiles of mutual appreciation.

"Stay by me," Rhenn said.

Fernanti sat down in the chair by the bed. "Shall I tell you more stories?"

"Please," Rhenn said. 

"This one is only known in Iyendo, I think." Fernanti paused. "I really am a princess of Iyendo," she added. 

"I could never doubt you," Rhenn said. "But I wouldn't care if you were a Lorgannish goatherd. You saved my life." She didn't think that would ever stop astonishing her.

Fernanti tenderly stroked her cheek. "Long ago and far away," she said, "there was, as it happens, a goatherd. Maybe even a Lorgannish one."

Rhenn relaxed against the pillows and let her future consort's voice soothe away her pain.


End file.
